Project Profile
Value: US$1,000 million
Location: WA-253-P and WA-17-R permit areas, Australia
Water depths: 650ft (200m)
Start-up Year: 2014
The Wheatstone project is located about 90 miles off Carnarvon Basin in Western Australia, at water depths of 650ft (200m). The project comes under WA-253-P and WA-17-R permit areas owned by Chevron. Design for development and production, site evaluation and field appraisal work of the field were completed in 2008. The Wheatstone facility is expected to have a capacity to produce up to 25mtpa of LNG. The first two LNG trains will be supplied with gas from the Chevron operated Wheatstone & Iago fields.
The Wheatstone and Iago fields are planned as a subsea tieback to a production platform that will be connected to the onshore LNG facility.
The field development will comprise three production flowlines that will tie six drill centres back to the platform. The Wheatstone field consists of four manifolds with a capacity of 20 wells, of which 15 are production wells and the rest spare wells. The Iago field comprises two manifolds with a 12-well capacity of which eight are production wells. The two fields will be developed through four drilling campaigns over a period of 15 years.
Operators:
Chevron Australia: Operator with 85.17% interest in Wheatstone, Operator with 58.66% interest in Iago
Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd.: 41.33% interest in Iago and 8% in Wheatstone
Kyushu Electric Power Company: 1.83% interest in Wheatstone
KOGAS Australia: 5% interest in Wheatstone
Contractors:
Consortium for feasibility study for gas to liquids project:
WorleyParsons
IntecSea
Granherne (KBR)
Technip: FEED for offshore processing platform and subsea facilities
IntecSea: FEED Subsea
Dockwise: Engineering study for topside installation
DSME: Design, construct, transport and install the processing platform
Frontier Engineering Solutions: Conceptual design
FMC Technologies Inc.: Subsea production systems
Clough Limited: Offshore hook-up and commissioning component
White & Case: Legal advisor and negotiator
Atwood Oceanics: Drilling contract for its semisubmersible drilling unit, the Atwood Osprey. Atwood Osprey parted several mooring lines and drifted approximately three nautical miles from its original position during Cyclone Olwyn, which impacted the northwest coast of Australia on March 12, 2015. The duration of the force majeure event and resultant repairs necessitated by the damage incurred from the cyclone have triggered termination rights in relation to which Chevron and Atwood Oceanics have agreed to a reduction in the term of the contract by one year with contractual rates remaining unchanged. It is expected that repairs for damage sustained by the rig and required regulatory approvals will be completed by April 30th 2015.
ALS Industrial: Five-year contract for the provision of technical services to support core maintenance, shutdowns and brownfield projects. ALS Industrial expects to provide employment opportunities for engineers, inspectors, non-destructive technicians along with contract and operational management personnel.
Subcontractors:
Technip: Detailed design of Gas Processing Platform
Jumbo: Contract for the Installation of 13 Subsea Structures. The Subsea Structures comprise of Pipeline Termination Structures (PTSs), SSIV structures, Tee Protection Structures (TPSs) and Drill Centre Manifolds. Installation will be done by Jumbo’s Fairplayer, a DP2 Heavy Lift Vessel with 2 x 900T revolving deep-water cranes. Fairplayer is anticipated to commence activities in April/May 2015.
Tidewater Subsea: WROV services contract by Allseas with the Campos Tide in Australia. The contract is scheduled to begin mid-April on the Chevron Wheatstone project.